2012 Pro Wrestling Thread

I don't know . . . I usually don't get around to watching raw off my dvr until Thursday or so, and I usually base where I am going to stop fast-forwarding on what I read from this thread. Plus, the link didn't really tell you anything for sure and didn't give any outcomes away, as most of them don't. . . . Like we couldn't see where this storyline was going anyway.

 

Not to toot my own horn, but I floated that idea a few pages back.
HBK does something in his role as referee to cost Triple H the match. Triple H is obviously pissed because he lost, and so is Undertaker because his win wasn't "pure" like he wanted. Both guys stew on it for the next year, and we get a triple threat match at WM 29 as the blow-off to this five-year feud.
That gives you HBK wrestling one last time, with his (assumed) final match against Triple H and Undertaker. Undertaker can lose the match, but technically not end the streak, if you have the pinfall between Trips and HBK, which gives an out for Undertaker to come back at WM 30 if he wants to. And you get a potential retirement match for Triple H, who has obviously transitioned into the front office.
It just makes sense on a lot of different levels.

 

For whatever it's worth, let's hope that the Undertaker calls it quits after this match. As good of a career as he's had, it's time to hang them up. I can't stand watching it anymore. Watching these younger guys (Miz, please?) getting buried isn't helping.

Granted, I don't watch or follow what happens on Smackdown, but when in the hell were the WWE Tag Team Champions last on TV? I didn't know who the champions were, I had to look it up.

I've contemplated ordering 'Mania, but there isn't a match intriguing enough to fork out $60-plus; for a snoozefest.

I do expect Sheamus/Bryan to be a great match, though. Maybe Vince will do them a favor and not have them open the show, like Edge and ADR did at WM 27.

Oh, and Flo Rida is performing. :

Great.

 

I was personally hoping they'd do the Triple Threat match this year, but I can see the build up. I just called it a year early

 

I'd like to see The Kliq have one last match against each other, without Undertaker being involved.

And if this was the plan all along, why are they billing this as the "end of an era" match?

 

Because they have to bill it that way.

One or the other will lose. One man left standing from that era to put an and to that past ear so to speak.

 

But if there's one last match between HBK and Trips, the match at Mania isn't really the end of that era ...

 

Speaking for myself, I'm kind of interested in the "inside baseball" stuff for pretty much everything. I love reading stuff like the Carter books on the late night wars, and as far as wrestling, I can't get enough of the Observer and Figure Four Daily and shoots. I can't really explain why either, and it doesn't extend to like celeb gossip or shitty reality shows. I think at a fundamental level, there is a desire to know how or why certain things work.

 

March 26, 2001.

I remember that night well. The final episode of WCW Monday Nitro. The night when Shane "bought" WCW out from underneath his dad's nose, and set up the underwhelming Invasion angle.

I remember the last match of the night between Sting and Ric Flair -- two of my favorite wrestlers growing up. That was one helluva match.

And I remember Booker T beating Scott Steiner in a title-vs.-title match. Booker was the last to hold the U.S. and World titles in WCW.

Anyone else remember this night and what they were doing/thinking?

 

Miz would have been another guy that, in the last year, should have been pushed to the point where he would have been a viable opponent for the Undertaker this year.

He had, what I thought, was an excellent run as the champion, and could have feuded with Cena and been in the title picture most of the year. Then, they could have come up with something to get him to challenge Undertaker. He could even bill it as sort of a "You're time is past, now it's the Age of the Miz" or something like that.

Nope. Just bury the guy, for whatever botch he did, and blame him for a low Survivor Series buyrate instead of the two guys who, supposedly, you want everyone to see..

 

I hadn't watched Nitro in a while, because it was just unwatchable. But I'd been following their business stuff on the 'net and there were several rumors of people buying the company (Bischoff with a group, another media company), and then all of a sudden, the announcement was that Vince bought them. Needless to say, it was a shock. Especially after finding out the final price, which, depending on who you believe, was anywheres from six-figures to $5 million. For a company that had been making tens of millions in profit, talk about a super-cheap figure.

I mostly watched Raw that night, just to see Vince in his full glory. I did switch over to Nitro a few times, and was mostly confused by them referring to the show as "the season-ender". What? They'd never had a season before. Sting-Flair wasn't that good, because Flair wasn't in shape. But I did like their nice tribute to all the former champions to close out the show.

Anyhoo, it was fun watching Vince asking the crowd who they wanted to see, especially the "Goldberg" chants. I was excited to see what the future would bring.

Then Shane came out in a WCW ring, and it was really weird. Both from a visual perspective, and Shane's announcement of buying the company. That's when I thought, "uh, oh".

I give them credit for trying the "Invasion", but there were too many factors (contracts, a time-lapse for the actual sale, poor planning by WWF), that made it messed up. Had they brough in the top stars from the start, and put them over at least early in the program, it would have been much better.

Instead, you had DDP, a former WCW champion, basically get squashed by Undertaker in the blowoff. Not the best way to get make your own company stronger.

 

The thing I remember most about the last Nitro was the very first scene, Nitro logo in the corner and Vince McMahon on the screen with a shit-eating grin. That blasted me off into surreal world for three hours.

And Baron mentioned Bischoff's group almost buying WCW. Actually, I believe they just about had the deal closed when that asshole Turner TV executive made the announcement that the company wouldn't air wrestling anymore, which made the company pretty much worthless.

I know that Bischoff shoulders a lot of blame for WCW's downfall, and this might be a crazy thought, but I think now that if Bischoff had run that thing again without having to share power with Russo and his ridiculous ideas and maybe learning from his past mistakes, he could have at least made WCW watchable again.